


Sometimes a Man May Do What a God Cannot

by kyrene



Series: Superman Returns/Batman Begins Crossover Timeline [1]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Crossover Pairing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:11:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrene/pseuds/kyrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An in-progress triangle crossover between the two movies in question. The timeline is a little iffy where canon is concerned, but hopefully disbelief can be set aside momentarily in the pursuit of hotness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes a Man May Do What a God Cannot

As distance was normally counted, Gotham was not so far from Metropolis. But it might as well be on another world. There was no need for a god in tights and a red cape when a bat in the form of a man lurked in the shadows, ready to swoop down on evildoers and dispense justice. The Batman was far more ruthless than Superman, but the criminals he had to deal with were often worse, the city officials more corrupt. Gotham was a city bloated under its own weight, and its self-appointed protector reflected this, his methods harsher, his manner more feral. Things were getting better, always improving, but it was a long way to scramble up from the absolute depths of depravity.

Gotham and Metropolis were divided by more than distance. They were separate territories with very little overlap. But there were times that borders could be breached, lines crossed. When crime and disaster were not involved... when the trip was clandestine....

When there was a fancy party at Wayne Manor, anyone could come out and play. Even if not everyone was invited.

+++

The large ballroom was bright except for where it was dark. The music was loud enough to dance to, but not so loud that it would interfere with normal conversation. The food was excellent, but that, like everything else, was what had been paid for. Perfection was expected, and would only have been noticed if it had been absent.

The guests were bright, colorful, witty, urbane. They were the cream of the crop, and most of them were only a fraction as interesting as they thought they were.

It was a picture perfect party, with just as much depth and shallowness as an oil painting on canvas, but more movement.

It would be a fine night, both inside and outside Wayne Manor. It would be a night to remember.

+++

In a swirl of black silk and a sprinkling of silver sequins, with a bright smile on her face and a gleam in her eyes, Lois Lane leaned back into the sure hands of her dance partner. The ballroom swung around her and she was laughing with sheer giddy delight. It was like being young again, not that she was so old.

She would get her scoop tonight; that much was certain. It was a matter of speaking to the right people, and all the right people were here at this party. It had been worth the trip to Gotham. It had been worth cajoling, bullying, and begging to get the invitations for herself and Richard. And it would be worth getting Perry to pay out for the elegant designer gown she had purchased to wear.

Not that the brusque editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet would complain over her expense report when she nailed her story.

And she was Lois Lane, star investigative reporter. She would get her story.

There was never any doubt.

+++

Richard White stood near the wall, avoiding the crowds. Not so much because he didn't like them, but because they weren't his kind of people. He'd been raised with wealth, had enjoyed all the trappings while growing up, but he had never understood the mindset of most of those with money. His father and then his uncle had pounded into his head from earliest childhood to the present that he had to earn his own way, had to work for whatever he wanted.

The curtains behind him were rich, crimson. Velvet embroidered with delicate gold. The floor was polished marble. Black threaded with grey and thin silver, almost a reflective surface.

Obviously Bruce Wayne did not share Richard White's feelings on wealth and the use thereof.

Richard sighed, nursing his drink, watching his fiancee out on the dance floor. He was here for Lois and she was his only reason for staying. He would much rather be at home, sitting on the sofa with his son. Jason would never enjoy a party like this, and Richard certainly wasn't either. But Lois was on the track of a big story, and nothing ever kept her from getting her scoop.

Richard would support her in this, as he supported her in everything.

+++

His nimble brown fingers cradled the delicate flute filled with sparkling golden liquid, callused pads stroking over the glass as he turned it slowly. The bubbles made a lazy crawl up the sides to the surface, breaking free and vanishing into the atmosphere. Full lips were quirked, not a smile but not a frown. Bemused, contemplative. A wing of nut-warm hair fell over his smooth forehead, but there were two thin lines etched in the flesh between his straight brows. Pale aqua-blue eyes were dimmed in the shadows, but still bright with intelligence and attentiveness.

+++

Swooping in as Batman would have been easy; grappling wire could help a man seem to fly. He wasn't Batman here, though. That creature must never enter this mansion, would forever be relegated to the dank cave beneath their very feet. That was as he wished it, and that was the way it must be.

As Bruce Wayne it was almost as simple, however. He was the master of the house, the lord of this party. If he willed it, people parted before him. An ocean of masks; smiling faces and empty eyes. There were some here he liked and respected, more he did not.

Richard White's shirt was clean but ever so slightly crumpled under his jacket. His tie was straight but it drooped at the ends. He wasn't wearing a vest or a cummerbund, and there was a scuff mark along the edge of one shiny black shoe. Nothing enough to make him look the slightest bit slovenly, and yet the overall effect was far more casual than anyone else in this room. He didn't have to try, and he was comfortable in this. It made him appear amiable, approachable.

Bruce Wayne had every intention of approaching. And it only helped that the man had removed himself from the main body of the crowd. He could not have created a better chance deliberately.

The bat was underground, relegated to the cave. But Bruce Wayne could swoop down on his prey with every bit as much intensity.

+++

"Would you like to go out and look at the garden?"

Richard thought at first that the words were not directed at him, they were voiced in such a low tone. He thought at first that the flush of warmth he felt came from the wine in his hand, not the heat of a large body invading his personal space. In both assumptions he was mistaken, which he realized a beat after the query had been made.

"Excuse me?" He turned his head, raising his chin because his host was taller than he was. Dark eyes that were all the shades of twilight twinkled down at him, amusement tugging at the corners of those cupid-bow lips that all the girls in the secretarial pool back at The Daily Planet offices went ga-ga over.

Bruce Wayne's mouth twitched, and it was unclear whether his regard was friendly or mocking. Richard decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, even though it was a legend even in Metropolis how jaded Gotham's resident Billionaire Playboy was.

"I was wondering if you might like to go out and view the garden," Bruce Wayne repeated. With a smoothness that left him more than a little awed, Bruce captured Richard's elbow with one hand, stealing away his wine glass with the other, and placing it on a passing tray. Richard bit back a chuckle, wondering whether that had been a tray of new drinks. Well, he'd barely sampled his drink and he was pretty sure that he didn't have cooties.

"The garden sounds... interesting," Richard said, not that it mattered anyway, because that one large hand at his elbow was enough to compel him forward as Bruce Wayne guided him toward wide glass patio doors that he suddenly discovered had been hiding behind the very curtains that he had been standing beside.

There was a quick flash of his own face in the glass, Bruce Wayne's face unreadable over his right shoulder, and then a taste of the night licked at his senses, drawing him outside as inexorably as the firm hand at his elbow.

+++

The sky was inky, a paler shade of indigo where the lights of Gotham blazed up from the earth into the heavens, washing out the night, pushing back the darkness. The stars were pinpricks above, clustered thick over the mansion, drowned out above the bustling city in the distance.

The moon hung low over the garden, its face creamy, its outline silvered. It frosted the leaves of the rose bushes and painted everything in strokes of sharp light and deep shadow. Reflected in the pool, the perfect circle was shattered into shards by the water tumbling down from the small fountain in its center.

A soft breeze was scented with greenery and a hint of dew. Roses and more exotic blossoms. Moss and grass, each with its own fragrance. And underneath it all the slightest hint of smoke. Maybe that last would never fade away entirely.

+++

He'd had the entire garden done over, after the fire, but the area containing the boarded-over well had been allowed to become overgrown, Not out of any fear that the entrance to the Batcave would be discovered. But it just seemed wrong to disturb that part of the garden, to bring order and neatness to a place that led to so much danger and wildness.

It was here that he led Richard White. They passed beyond lawns cropped to a perfect half inch into knee high grass and weeds. The rose bushes were overgrown, the broken stone walls crawling with ivy, and the trees leaned down, casting the ground into shadow so dense that the moon might as well not be shining overhead. There was no sign here of the lights blazing in the mansion, and the wind sweeping through the leaves was louder than the faint echo of distance dance music.

The lean figure beside him shivered, even though the night was not chill, and he did not remove his hand from that one elbow. Between the pools of deep darkness, against one ivy-thick wall, there was a patch of moonlit night. It was here, within two feet of the boarded-over well that he led his guest.

Things were bound to get interesting out in this part of the garden, where wildness held sway.

+++

The garden was painted in sharp angles and harsh lines of ebony and silver, nothing soft or rounded other than the bright moon overhead. The air was filled with the scent of healthy greenery, but everything that he could see had been leeched of all color, laid bare by the unforgiving illumination.

The hand at his elbow moved to his upper back as they entered an overgrown area tucked away around an unexpected corner, urging him onward, until he and his host came to a halt. Bruce Wayne's black suit jacket ate up the light, his dress shirt reflecting it, and his eyes were impossible to read in the moon-shadowed recesses under his brows. His angular face could have been etched out of stone, and yet there was still an odd quirk to his lips, and something in Richard's gut squirmed to the surface, telling him that he ought to feel nervous.

But by now it was far too late, and Wayne Manner might as well have been a world away from where he was.

+++

It wasn't danger. It wasn't menace. It was nothing more nor less than the darkness of the human soul. The man below, in the garden, might not be safe but he wasn't in need of rescue.

There was nothing to do in this moment but wait and watch. Interference would not be welcome, and there was a level of curiosity that demanded satisfaction.

Sometimes a man might do what a god could not.

+++

The night that had seemed to lay before him filled with tedium at its beginning now stretched forth in a broad vista of expectation and possibility. It had required nothing more complex than finding at his party a face that he had never expected to see again. Someone that he had never actually met, but knew. Oh, yes. He knew that face. He recognized that smile.

The smile that had appeared as the man's fiancee had swept off to the dance floor.

The party had ground to an abrupt halt around that smile.

For a long moment he had searched his memory, trying to put a name to the face, to the familiar curve of that delicious mouth. Then it had come to him, and it was the knowledge that went with the face more than the name that had brought the glee bubbling to the surface, painting a wide grin across his own lips before he had managed to swallow most of it.

He was good at hiding things. He wasn't the only one, evidently. But all secrets had, eventually, to come to light. And he thought that a turn around the garden was just what he and Richard White needed. To discuss... old times.

+++

Richard was loath to break the silence, even though he was consumed from inside with a need to know what he was doing out here. It hadn't been his idea, but he had gone along with it. Now he was wondering why. But it wasn't as though Bruce Wayne had given him any choice, really. And curiosity had probably played a large part... as had boredom, if he was honest.

Besides, when one's host rendered a personal invitation, especially when he was a billionaire, it would be rude to refuse.

"I remember you from school."

It was such a non sequitur to come out of nowhere... once more Bruce had taken him by surprise.

"School?" Richard faced his host, tipping his head, his expression quizzical. "Really? Are you sure?" Bruce Wayne's silence said better than words that he wouldn't have said so if he hadn't been sure. Richard wracked his brain, searched his memory, but still came up with nothing. He huffed out a small laugh and shook his head. "I think I would remember going to school with the heir to the Wayne fortune. Help me out here. Elementary school? High school?"

"Princeton."

And with this one word answer, his entire evening unwound around him.

+++

There was a satellite overhead, metallic and bright in the black of space, caught up in orbit, circling the Earth. When you went up far enough, everything floated. Closer to the ground, not so many things had that ability.

But then, he had never been of the Earth, not from the very beginning.

+++

"You attended Princeton?" Richard White's voice was steady; it was only to ears that were set to hear that the faintest waver was apparent. "I still... I don't remember you...."

"I'm not surprised." He smirked, amused now by the memory. It had been so long, so much had happened, that it seemed a lifetime ago. It could almost have been a different life, someone else's life. "I didn't make it even halfway through my Freshman year before the school faculty decided to uninvite me. That was your Senior year, I believe." There was no response to this information, but he hadn't really expected one. "I'd heard about you, though."

"Had you? There could be no misunderstanding in the thin line of Richard White's mouth. "Not a lot of people had."

"No," he agreed serenely. "Not many. Only those who mattered."

Richard White turned away, his arms clasped before his chest, his posture defensive, protective. It was a little too late for that now. Years too late. He knew, and now Richard White knew that he knew. And there was no way to refute this knowledge.

It was laid out bare and it was up to the other man to respond. He waited. He was patient. He was always patient.

And, besides, they were in his garden.

+++

Always earn your own way; they had drilled it into him from childhood through adulthood. His father had sent him off to Princeton, and after the man's death Perry had taken over the parenting role. First one and then the other, they had paid for his schooling, housing, and food. But they had left the earning of pocket money up to him.

They'd never told him how he should earn it.

They'd never asked him how he earned it.

He hadn't wanted them to.

His father had always said that there was nothing better than making money at something you enjoyed, something you were good at. And Richard had honestly believed that to be true.

He still did, actually. Even though everything else had changed.

+++

The silence stretching between the two in the garden was not really silent, but was filled with the rustling of leaves, the tinkling of the fountain, the soft undertone of music from the mansion, the occasional streamer of laughter that broke free and rode the breeze.

Curiosity was a human trait, but not exclusive to humans.

There were literally hundreds of places he could be other than right here, but none of them would have been even fractionally so compelling.

+++

Richard White shifted, turning to face him directly in the moonlight. A couple of stray leaves cast strange patterns of shadow and light over one side of his face, making the flesh almost seem to move on its own, even though his expression was still. He looked hard, but it was only the stark moonlight. His gaze was steady, and did not falter.

"So? You remember me from school. What do you intend to do with this memory?"

The question was not defiant or even defensive. They might almost have been carrying on a normal conversation. Bruce Wayne felt his respect for Richard White rising. The man already had an impressive resume, and not just in the area that they were talking about... or, rather, talking around without uttering the specifics.

He let the suspense build, more for the dramatic flare than anything else; it was difficult to let go of that even when he wasn't in the Bat suit. Richard White shifted from one foot to the other, but this was the only evidence of his discomfort.

Finally, he grinned, letting his teeth flash sharp and white in the night. He was a predator, no two ways about it. Bruce Wayne hunted in a different forum than the Batman did, with his eyes on a different prize.

"It's not so much what I intend to do," he said evenly, running his eyes over the plush curves of that utterly exquisite mouth in what he had to label even to himself as a proprietary manner.

"It has to do... with what I... do?" Richard White completed slowly, his arms still folded, fingers clenched over the arms of his suit jacket.

Instead of following this thread, he turned his face away, gazing up at the stars that were twinkling overhead.

"There was only one thing I ever really regretted about having to leave the school so abruptly," he said softly, then slanted a glance out of the corner of his eye. His eyesight was keen, but the moonlight washed everything out, so he almost missed the rise of color in Richard White's cheeks.

Almost, but not quite.

It was a lovely sight, and one he wished that he could savor physically with a hand to one warm cheek, fingers caressing blushing flesh. But that would be presumptuous, too forward, and even though they were both aware of what he had just demanded -- without ever coming out and speaking the words -- there were some lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

+++

"Maybe...." Richard had to work his mouth a moment, but he felt that he was handling this unexpected twist with a remarkable amount of poise, all things considered. "Maybe we can make up for lost time...." He freed a hand and brushed the pad of his thumb over his lower lip, attempting to appear thoughtful, maybe as a distraction from the raw reality of the moment. He smiled at Bruce Wayne, his mouth curving wide. "Although I have to say that I'm more than likely a little out of practice. I _have_ been engaged to the same woman for five years now...."

Bruce Wayne chuckled, matching his smile with a sardonic grin of his own. "I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle," he offered, surprising a small laugh out of Richard.

"You did _not_ just say that," he denied, feeling his heart thumping against his chest. But it wasn't fear. It wasn't distaste. He wasn't worried about Bruce Wayne telling anyone, really, even though it would pretty much ruin him if he did. Bruce Wayne might be jaded and capricious, but he wasn't mean spirited.

Maybe it was because he now had an opportunity to revisit those very memories that the Billionaire Playboy had mentioned, memories that he may have missed more than he had known, and he had no choice in the matter. He could say "no", but he didn't intend to.

This wasn't really blackmail so much as it was an excuse....

Not that he'd ever admit this to anyone; even himself.

+++

Two men in the overgrown garden, one now on his knees, and this wasn't anything that he could have expected; nothing he would ever have thought that he'd see, hanging around outside the party hosted by the Billionaire Playboy of Gotham.

He was familiar with the concept of blackmail, but hadn't thought that the heir to the Wayne fortune would stoop to such levels. But then, when one considered the prize....

Richard White was definitely not in any mortal peril. He wouldn't need anyone to swoop in and save the day; to do so would actually cause the worst sort of embarrassment. Besides, the Wayne Manor was a part of Gotham, which was technically the Batman's territory. Such an intrusion would only raise bad feelings, if the black-clad vigilante were to hear of it.

The bright lights of Metropolis beckoned, but he was stuck in place. The view was a compelling one, and let it never be said that he didn't finish what he started.

Yet another thing he had in common with Lois Lane's fiancee.

+++

The moonlight was more than enough to see by, and there were all of his other senses primed to enjoy this encounter as well; the rising heat of this most intimate touch and his reaction to it, the scent of another man's arousal, but most of all the fact of looking down and seeing a beautiful memory right where he wanted it, come to life in his present.

Those lush lips were stretched around his cock, nursing, needy, wanting. Cheekbones stood out stark above the hollows of the other man's cheeks, ready to slice through the flesh. His eyes were closed, brow creased, hands warm and steady on his thighs. It as like being immersed in liquid sex, pleasure being drawn from him in rising waves with each pull of that talented mouth.

If it had indeed been years since Richard White had last done this he had not lost any of his ability. He took to cocksucking as naturally as though it was what he had been made for.

It was really over all too quickly, considering the years that had gone into making this encounter. But that was the way things went. And now they had set a precedent. Maybe this was only a one time thing... but maybe not.

Only time would tell. Because memories had to be made, and sometimes it took a will to create memories that were pleasant, that would last.

After spending himself in Richard White's mouth, he helped the man to his feet, pulling him close for one quick, startling kiss, which he probably shouldn't have dared but did. And Richard White did not fight. The man was hard in his pants, and it required only a quick stroke of a zipper and a few sturdy pulls with a not ungentle fist before he was clinging to his host's sturdy frame, gasping for breath, trying not to cry out even though no one could hear them out here, and staining the moonlit grass with his release.

Richard White rested his head a moment against Bruce Wayne's broad shoulder, struggling to level his breathing. His hair was mussed from Bruce's fingers clenching in it, and his mouth quirked, wondering whether anyone would notice or think to wonder.

They would have to go back inside soon. Maybe it would be better if they went separately. Or maybe it didn't really matter at all.

It _was_ his party, after all.

+++

It was a familiar taste on his tongue, bitter and yet not distasteful. Nothing at all like a woman; not that there had ever been any comparison between the two. That had been something he had missed ever since he had met Lois. It was hard and thick and hot and musky. There was a essence to it that was vital to him, and he only just now, after five years and a fiancee and a child realized this.

But he could quell the revelation, push it down, for the sake of his life and his two loves. Lois and Jason had no part in what had happened in this wild corner of Bruce Wayne's garden, and they would never know about it. His life would go on as it always had. This had only been a minor diversion.

"Let's go inside now," he husked, reaching up with both hands and trying to tame his hair.

Bruce Wayne smirked at him, but obligingly led the way back to the more cultivated parts of the garden.

Richard was pretty sure that the knees of his dress pants were ruined, but he was also pretty sure that his fiancee would be too busy gloating over her scoop to notice. That was, if she had gotten the story she had been after.... But she was Lois Lane; it wasn't likely that she hadn't.

If a pair of ruined slacks were the worst thing to come out of this evening, for him, then he would count himself lucky.

+++

It was a quick flight back to Metropolis. The large mechanical globe on the top of the Daily Planet building spun lazily, lights blazing in the many windows of the building, but the paper's two best reporters were not in residence. One was flying overhead, his crimson cape flapping and his head awash with bizarre images and strange responses... the other was plying her trade at that party at the Wayne Manor, with no idea that her fiancee had just blown their host in the garden.

It had been an interesting night, all things considered.

And that was only the beginning of this new truth.

+++

The clocks had passed over into the next day hours ago and the party was winding down. Bruce Wayne was unsurprised to see that no one had noted his absence; get the liquor flowing freely enough and the host wouldn't be missed. The ranks were thinning a little, and he would probably be retiring himself, soon. Though he wouldn't be going to bed; he'd head down to the Batcave to suit up and run a quick patrol in the early dawn hours.

He would leave it up to Alfred to clear the last of the stragglers from the mansion.

+++

Lois Lane's feet hurt, but she had gotten her scoop and it was so worth every ache, every blister. She yawned mightily, even though she was bouncing inside with energy and excitement. In her head she was already stringing together lines of prose. She was going to have to make Richard drive home so that she could get a start on that; smart of her to pack her laptop in the trunk of the car!

Speaking of Richard, where was he?

Ah, there! Talking to their host... no, they were just standing close to one another, not speaking. Curious.

She darted over, grasping her fiancee's arm and giving him that smile that meant that she'd gotten what she had come for and so they could leave. Richard didn't mind, he never minded. After all, he was only at this party for her.

Bruce Wayne was gracious and wished them both good night and a safe drive back to Metropolis.

He really was a classy guy, for someone that rich, with that much of a reputation. Really, he hadn't seemed anything less than respectable. Lois wondered whether the entire Billionaire Playboy thing was nothing more than a silly exaggeration.

Bruce Wayne hadn't seemed very much like a playboy to her.

+++

Richard hadn't been able to avoid one last glance at Bruce Wayne as the man had bid them farewell. They would probably never meet again, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Probably a good thing.

Those dark eyes had been twinkling with amusement, and he hadn't been able to prevent the slight blush that had warmed his cheeks. But Lois was already striding away, heedless of her narrow skirt in her rush to get her story down in words. Richard cast one last look at that smirking mouth and hurried after her.

Time and beyond time to go home.

Lois chewed her nails, tapped her foot, and otherwise jittered in a way that was so very familiar while they waited for the valet to bring the car around. She nudged Richard to open the trunk for her -- there hadn't been room for car keys anywhere on her person in the slinky, svelte dress she was wearing -- and he did so. She grabbed her laptop case.

"I'll sit in the back, so my screen won't distract you while you're driving," she said, smiling up at him, her eyes aglow with excitement.

"Not a problem," he assured her, returning her smile with one of his own.

When he unlocked and pulled open the door for her, she leaned over to kiss him. He turned away, as though he had not seen her coming, ostentatiously to tip the valet, who was still waiting.

Even with the wine that he had gulped down, he couldn't be sure that he didn't still have the taste of Bruce Wayne on his lips.

And that was something he very much didn't want to share with Lois.

Tonight had been a night to remember... or forget. Either way, it had happened, and there was no taking it back.

Richard was really kind of surprised, though. With the reputation he had, he would never have thought that Bruce Wayne might be into men.

By the time he made it around to the driver's side, Lois was already typing away, her face lit up in the glow of the laptop screen.

It was going to be a long drive home.


End file.
